According to a report in La Presse which was published on Saturday, the health-care insurance board of Quebec and the RCMP have discovered that almost 3,000 North Africans have used fake medicare cards in order to assist themselves immigrate to Canada.
Regie de 1’assurance maladie du Quebec confirmed in a statement that it is investigating a complicated ploy that was apparently set up by an immigration consultant to make believe that his clients live in Quebec. However, it did not disclosed as to how many people might be involved in the ploy.
The Regie added that it seems that the operation permitted non-residents of Canada to gather as many proofs of residence in Quebec as possible.
The La Presse story said that children were sighed up in schools just for name and also at day camps in order to prove that residence of families.
The story noted that people who were allegedly benefiting from the operation were residents of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.
A spokesperson of the RCMP told the Montreal Gazette that he could not confirm or deny if there is an investigation going into the matter, but said that the RCMP occasionally does investigations in context with health-insurance frauds.
Therefore it is matter of coincidence that Revenue Quebec officers conducted eight raids this week in Montreal and Laval on decision immigration 2000, Inc., which is an immigration consulting firm.
A statement from the agency said that Revenue Quebec suspects that the administrator and two employees of the firm are producing false income statements for non-residents from December 2004.